


seen your scars and kissed your crimes

by reddoorandlemontree



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Happily Ever After, Jonerys Week 2020, Post Season 7, idk an 8, trigger warning // scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:56:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25668574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reddoorandlemontree/pseuds/reddoorandlemontree
Summary: canon divergent hea told through moments of jon and daenerys discovering and discussing each other's scarstw // scars , scarring
Relationships: Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen
Comments: 22
Kudos: 135





	seen your scars and kissed your crimes

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to miss justwandering-neverlost for being the sweetest ever and reading this over for me bc ya girl was a mess.
> 
> hope you enjoy!

When she first sees the scars sown across Jon Snow’s torso, she thinks for one horrifying, dizzying moment that they are fresh. The gashes are an angry red while the rest of him is pale — too pale — and the edges pucker like a stretched canvas hacked away at with a blade.

It’s only when Ser Davos shoulders past her in a barely-contained panic does Daenerys remember the knight’s vehement words: _“He took a knife in the heart for his people.”_

As she waits and waits for his eyes to blink open, her own remain affixed to the one mark not hidden beneath the furs. Her tears have not ebbed since Viserion’s loss had settled over her hours ago, something dark having swarmed and devoured her whole. Still, her eyes sting fiercer when she thinks about his scars for too long but it is easy to leave those feelings unnamed when she is numb with grief.

When he finally awakes, he does not mention them and she does not ask.

The next time she sees those scars, it’s on a different ship and under different circumstances but her heart still beats the same, heavy rhythm.

His eyelids have drooped and his breathing has deepened so she does not mean to disturb him as she idly outlines the hooked tear just to the left of his sternum but it causes his whole body to tense against hers.

“I’m so sorry,” she utters at once, silently cursing her mindlessness and pulling away.

Before she can bring her hand to her side, though, Jon’s rises to grasp her wrist. Peering down through thick, dark lashes to where she’s nuzzled into the slope of his shoulder, he simply slides his fingers between hers and brings them to rest over his heart once more. She feels it thud just slightly faster than before.

“You do not have to tell me anything you don’t wish to,” she whispers in assurance.

But he does anyway, gathering her into his arms and tugging her body atop his.

She finds solace in the warmth of his embrace, a reminder that he is _here_ no matter the past, as his gruff voice paints her an image of the cruel path that has led to this moment.

Afterward, she plants an impassioned kiss to each gash — it’s heady knowing that his blood courses with magic like that in her own veins. She slithers down on her belly between his legs to reach them all and, at last, takes his hardening cock in her mouth. Her tongue traces the ridge up to the tip before she caresses the head with her tongue and bobs down to take him deep and deeper still, even as her throat protests and her eyes water.

Regardless, the way he tastes of her and how he moans her name, going from “Daenerys…” to just “ _Dany_ …” is more than inciting.

~

“I don’t want you to leave,” he hears her mumble into her pillow.

She’s lying on her stomach, glancing over at him through the silver strands fallen over her eyes. With the way her breath is still labored, back rising and falling with each great inhale and exhale, he can tell she’s too exhausted to brush them aside so he does so for her.

“I don’t have to, just yet,” he says, fingers lingering at her cheek, “it’s barely the hour of the ghost.”

“I don’t want you to leave _ever_.”

He huffs in amusement but his chest aches — the sentiment masked beneath the complaint is not lost on him. “Aye, me neither.”

They are travelling north along the White Knife now, no longer on the ship where it’d been easy to throw caution to the wind when it came to their… _intimacy_. With the Manderly host accompanying them to Winterfell, along with other smaller houses and townsfolk joining along the way, their advisors had warned them to be careful, knowing that any suggestions to halt this thing growing between them altogether would fall on deaf ears. And so, Jon sneaks into her bed once the camp has gone quiet and returns to his own before first light.

Some nights, they stay up until their eyes burn to exchange stories and thoughts; other nights, they play Cyvasse until one of them (usually Dany) wins; and most nights, they fuck. She has captivated him, heart and mind, and each inch of her body, taste of her lips, drop of her arousal is intoxicating and by the Gods, he always craves it.

She laughs suddenly, the sound muffled.

“What?”

“I’m shaking,” she explains, raising a hand to prove it. He can make out a slight tremor in the glow of the braziers. The heat they emanate, too, lets him know it’s not due to the ice winds outside.

He grins, trying not to feel too proud of himself. The memory of her pleasure-wracked body beneath his, taut and feverish with ecstasy, floods his mind, however, and it’s enough for his cock to begin awakening again.

He rises onto his hands and lowers himself over her to brush kisses to the nape of her neck. His muscles are wearied too but he’d be a bloody fool to waste these precious moments with something as trivial as sleep while they teeter at the brink of death.

She hums, fingers curling into the bed linens and back arching to press her arse against him.

It takes all the self-control in the world for Jon to not toss his plans for her aside and just prop her hips up and bury himself in her warmth. He highly doubts she would have qualms about it either but his tongue thirsts for a taste of her, the breathy moans he will coax with it making his ears pine too. And so, with a stifled groan, he continues his path down, following the dip of her spine with his lips until he’s stopped short by a raised streak cutting through it.

It gives him pause, first because he has never noticed it before and then because of the daunting realization that it feels far too much like the numerous healed scars marking his own body.

“Dany?” he murmurs, only to be met with an impatient whine.

But, astonishingly, his previous ministrations have strayed far away and he can only focus on the scar he’d felt. He runs his index finger along the thin line, finding it stretches from one side of her ribcage to the other.

Her back muscles stiffen beneath his touch the moment she realizes what’s happened but she makes no effort to swat his hand away or conceal herself, only sighs as he reaches over to bring the candlestick closer. It’s detectable to the touch but nearly invisible, just slightly silver when he angles the flame a certain way.

He begins speaking but only manages to whisper, “Gods, what…” before the words die on his tongue because there’s only really one thing that can leave a scar like this.

“It’s nothing,” she says, twisting her head as much as she can to meet his disquieted gaze. “Given to me two years ago by a man who died shortly thereafter.”

He knows better than to push her, that there are moments from her past that she may never feel the want or need to share, so he suddenly feels guilt shroud him for his reaction. It somewhat eases, though, when she continues on her own volition.

“After the Sons of Harpy attacked, I was stranded and taken captive by a khalasar headed to Vaes Dothrak — that is their holy city where different khalasars may convene without any bloodshed. The khal… he wished to present me as a gift, a trinket, to Khal Moro.

“Because he could not mar my body if he wanted Moro’s goodwill, I was treated far better than other prisoners and slaves. Frankly, I was not very good at being either so he only once whipped me hard enough to break my skin, and just barely at that.”

She thinks her words are a balm to the rage roiling his blood but they do no such thing — the only thing stopping his fury from blinding him is her promise that the khal is already dead.

“How did he die?” he growls out, easing his grip when he realizes his fingers are digging into her sides possessively, protectively.

She lifts her hips and uses a knee to push off the bed and plant him down onto it instead, all while he complies readily. She then swings a leg over to straddles his waist and leans down, hovering over his lips as she tells him, “The khals brought me inside their temple to decide my fate: sell me to the Wise Masters, allow me to join the Dosh Khaleen, or have their way with me then pass me to their kos…. I decided their fate instead and burned the temple to the ground.”

Her eyes scan his face for a reaction as she says it and he’s not quite sure what is it she’s looking for but it seems to satisfy her when, in his simmering fury, all he can give her is a deathly low, “Good.” He can feel its proof when a shiver dances up her spine and the corners of her lips tick upward.

Although he would kill for her, he is also aware that Daenerys Targaryen is more than capable of razing her enemies herself, a fact that makes her impossibly more alluring.

~

It’s been weeks since the battle yet she still expects the water around her to turn murky with grime and blackened blood each time she steps into a bath.

She fears she will never forget the memory of scouring her skin red that night, trying to erase any trace of the Undead along with the blood of countless fighters, the blood of _Ser Jorah_ from her hands. Her frantic scrubbing had only ceased when Missandei had barged in, her form blurred by tears.

The reverie ripples and fades before her as Jon lowers himself into the immense bathing pool too, wincing at the heat though she finds it tepid at best.

They are at Dragonstone, now, having seen the odd amalgam of their forces South. Half had sailed to the island, guarded by her flying overhead on Drogon, while the rest stationed on the mainland by Maidenpool, their march shielded by Jon and Rhaegal.

It is astoundingly reckless and dangerous — _stupid_ , even — for him to not be there now.

She had even stormed outside, sensing Rhaegal’s presence, and incredulously told him as such.

In response, he’d only hung his head and insisted, “There’s… we need to talk, Daenerys, and I couldn’t bear to wait any longer. I swear to you, I will return to the camp by dawn, sooner if you would have me leave but please… let me stay.”

Her face had remained stoic as she’d given him a quick nod but her heart had hammered away, already seizing in anticipation of the explanation he’d denied her after their last conversation in Winterfell’s crypts. That had been two moons ago, most of that time occupied by the march South following a fortnight of healing for the people and avoidance for their monarchs. They’d split ways afterward, him down the Kingsroad and her following the White Knife; the journey away from Winterfell had proved achingly different than the one towards it.

And so they’d hashed out their hurts, first by spitting fiery words across the painted table and then by fucking on top of it, declarations of love and longing exchanged in heated gasps as the world trembled beneath them.

Now, as he turns away to rifle through the array of soaps and oils set by the ledge, she can see the evidence of their lovemaking in the pink streaks her nails had etched onto his back, irritating his alabaster skin.

She is about to comment on them, something clever and inappropriate that will redden the tips of his ears, when she notices two puckered scars by his shoulder. Wading closer, her hand lifts to touch them gently, feeling that the skin is hardened enough for them to be quite old. She has seen them before, of course, but had never really sought an explanation — his beautiful warrior’s body is marked with tales of many duels, after all.

Still, she wishes to know the story behind each in time and so she asks, “When did you get these?”

He turns around and she doesn’t miss the way his eyes warm the moment they settle on her. The way he looks at her now, it feels impossible that those same eyes had skittered away from hers mere weeks ago, darkened by confusion and conflict.

“The arrow wounds?”

Firm, dextrous hands grip her hips and pull her legs up to wrap around his waist, her body weightless in the water.

“Yes.” She smiles, despite the dire topic. It’s just that she’s missed him so much, his touch and his love most of all.

“The same day I got these.” A hand leaves her thigh to point to the scar cutting down from his left brow and the one slicing his right cheek similarly .

“A battle?”

“No.” His brows twitch with an emotion she cannot decipher, furrowing for a moment before relaxing again. “When I was with the Free Folk, they wanted me to prove my loyalty, that I was ‘ _one of them_ ,’ by killing an innocent man. He was an elderly horse breeder just south of the Wall, defenseless and shaking, and I just couldn’t do it. They murdered him anyway but my hesitation meant I was still a Crow so they attacked.

“These were given to me by an eagle after I killed their greenseer,” he says, pointing to his eyes. “And the arrow wounds…. After I fled, one of them caught up with me. She was a better shot than anyone I knew, could’ve ended my life right there as she was supposed to, but instead, she gave me two arrows on my back and one on my leg and let me go.”

“Your wildling girl,” Dany murmurs.

He nods and does not break away from her gaze but his eyes give away little. Only the gentle lapping of the water against the edges of the pool sounds around them.

It’s silly to want to know this of a dead lover but she asks anyway, not out of jealousy or malice but simply because she wishes to learn all of him, past and present: “Did you love her?”

“I did,” he answers honestly after a beat. “But not like this, Dany, _nothing_ like this. I didn't even know it was possible to love someone the way I love you.”

A burning sensation flares behind her eyes at his admission and she tries to blink it away to no avail. Her voice is thin when she asks, “And how is that?”

He huffs, lips quirking up at the question. A moment passes as he considers before avowing, “Endlessly. Wholly. To the point where I can’t truly see myself before you.”

Her chest tightens with each word as if he’s wringing her heart out himself. Her throat aches similarly but she manages to quip, “I didn’t know spending two moons apart from me would turn you into a bleeding poet, Jon Snow.”

He only chuckles and presses his lips to her jaw, kissing away the droplets beading on her skin.

“Aye, well, I’m in love with you and I’ll sing you all the odes as long as you want to hear them.”

~

Kings Landing has fallen, the victory decidedly theirs, but he feels anything but victorious.

The Golden Company have thrown down their swords, charred bits of the Silence float in the Blackwater, the Mountain’s rotting corpse lays somewhere in the square, and Cersei corrodes away in a cell somewhere far below the Red Keep but all he can see is the bloody, swollen gash on his wife’s temple. (Well, she’s not his wife under the Seven yet but they’d said their vows before the Old Gods and that is enough for them.)

Ultimately, taking the city had been easier than anticipated — that is until Dany had stepped into the throne room with Jon at her heel and green light had exploded before them.

They’d had men conduct a reconnaissance beforehand, of course, but the moment in the throne room had been meant to be private, a quiet celebration of all that has brought them here. But not one full step had been taken into the grand hall before the marble floors had rumbled and shattered.

For all her frustrations regarding Jon and his _heroicness_ , she’d launched herself onto him as his shield against the flames, her weight sending them falling backward and crashing down the steps as those, too, exploded beneath them.

He’d managed to get away with some singed hair, a bruised rib or three, burns melting the skin of his arms, and tiny blisters dotting any other exposed skin. There is no doubt in his mind that he would have died if not for her, though that is nothing new.

Dany, however, has a ghastly split on the side of her head, the jagged cut carved around her right eye, tracing her hairline.

While she floats in and out of consciousness, he finds relief in the sound of her steady breaths, even if it is accompanied by a shrill ringing in his ears from the explosion. Every few hours, she’ll wake and look at him with her beautiful, beautiful eyes unfocused and confused before they fall shut again. Sometimes, her fingers twitch instead and he grasps them immediately, peppering kisses to her palm in case she’s awake enough to feel them and know that he is right there.

When she wakes for good, twilight has washed the city in a deep orange.

He’s too preoccupied with counting the bandages, ensuring there are enough to last the night so he can report back to her Dothraki healer, to notice that she has come to. The moment he does though, he lets out a rush of air that’s been fighting for release since he’d woken up himself, no matter that it hurts to breathe. Already, he can tell that this time is different — her stare is sharper, whereas it’d been blank and hazy before, and it follows him around the room as he leaves the salves and concoctions and gauze to rush to her bedside. He knows he should be fetching the healer but pure instinct draws him towards her instead.

“Gods, Dany, you terrified me,” he croaks but immediately feels guilty for chiding her the moment she’s conscious enough to hear it. “How are you feeling? Do you remember what happened?”

Her voice is hoarse and strained as she says, “Well, I’m….” And then she’s squinting up at him as if even the last rays of the sun sifting in through the curtains are too bright. “Are _you_ alright?”

At this, _her_ asking after his state while she’s lying in bed looking battered and frail, he emits a watery laugh before lowering his forehead to the hollow of her clavicle. “You’re incredible, you know that?”

A comfortable silence ensues wherein her fingers come up to play in his hair, so very _Dany_ that he shuts his eyes and allows relief to engulf him once more.

“I remember the throne room,” she eventually says. “The wildfire. My head hurts like someone’s taken a battle ax to it and—”

He looks up, worry spiking when her words cut off only to find her wide eyes staring at the bandages on his arms.

“Jon….”

“Hush, you need not fret about that right now; I swear to you I am fine. We’ve got to focus on taking care of you so you can heal up fast.”

“Heal up?”

He musters a half-smile as he takes her hand in his and lifts her index finger to gently graze the raised, balm-saturated wound at her temple. It will make wearing her new crown a lot more difficult but it is also a mark of her dauntlessness, her selflessness.

All she says is, “We’ll match,” glowing with a small smile of her own.

~

Their daughter is nocturnal. Dany is convinced of it.

She has always been this way — as a babe, her nursemaids would regularly comment on how blessed they were that Rhaenna slept through the day with little fuss, only because they hadn’t known that said _fuss_ was reserved for the middle of the night. Three years later, and not much has changed. Instead of crying for feedings, changings, and lullabies, she now keeps them up with demands for dragon rides, stories, and games.

They’ve tried everything, from shortening her nap times in the day to tiring her out in the training yard but nothing seems to work. The telltale squeak of door hinges around the hour of the wolf never fails to sound and alert them.

Dany wakes moments after Jon, rubbing the sleep from her eyes to find him hauling their little princess onto the bed. Her silver curls bounce and catch the moonlight spilling in from the open balcony doors as he lowers her onto the mattress.

“You’re supposed to be in bed, Rhaenna love.” His voice is gravelly and tired but as patient as ever.

“But I have a nightmare, Papa.”

Dany catches Jon’s eye, both of them fighting a smile because she most definitely did not.

Still, he concedes, sighing, “Oh, alright.”

At this, she shakes her head — their daughter has him wrapped around her finger.

“What was your nightmare about, darling?” she asks.

Seeing her mother has woken, Rhaenna crawls over the covers to snuggle into her arms. Dany feels her mischievous little smile curve against her neck as she answers, “I forgot, Mama.”

“Then I’m sure it should be easy to fall back asleep in your bed, no?”

And suddenly she pulls away, eyebrows furrowed comically low. “No, no, I remember now! There was— there was a big, tall monster, tall as clouds, and it stomped on ev-thing and oh, it was very bad, Mama.”

Though it’s a lie, and a very bad one at that, she just cannot help but laugh and hug her precious girl close, saying, “Come here, you,” into her ringlets. “Would you like a story tonight?”

She nods while her fingers reach out to play in Jon’s hair as he nestles into them too.

After having repeated it so many times by now, the story of the dragon and the mouse falls from her lips with little conscious effort. It even has Jon nodding off but Rhaenna stays as awake as ever, weaving a ‘braid’ into her father’s hair.

She wriggles away and clambers onto Jon the moment the story ends (“‘You laughed when I told you I would repay you,’ said the mouse. ‘Now you see that even a mouse can help a dragon.’”). His eyes are still closed but he automatically begins patting her back, a well-oiled machine from many a sleepless night.

“Whas this?” she suddenly questions. Dany can see the silhouette of her fingers point to a patch of moonlight on Jon’s collar bone that illuminates a tiny scar.

“Hmm?”

“Wake _up_ , Papa.”

He grumbles only once before coming to his senses and saying, “Aye, I’m awake.”

She bites back a grin at imagining what their small council would have to say if they knew how their king folds at the behest of a three-year-old.

“There’s a line here. Is it from the bad men?” Her little voice is suddenly hushed and gentle, making Dany’s heart clench and, no doubt, Jon’s too. She’d asked about the scars on his torso some moons ago before proceeding to have a meltdown even though their explanation had left out the worst bits.

“No,” he quickly reassures her. “Your Aunt Arya gave that to me while sparring when we were little.”

“You lost to Aunt Aya?”

Jon nods sleepily, his eyelids threatening to slide shut again.

Rhaenna just gives him an understanding “Mmh,” as if to say, ‘ _Makes sense_ ,’ before, “I kiss it better for you.”

And sure enough, she leans in to peck a kiss to the little mark while her parents simply _melt_. “Thank you, my sweet,” Jon gushes.

She replies with a polite, “You’re welcome,” and then after a beat, finally takes mercy on them in adding, “You may seep now.”

“How generous of you, Your Majesty,” Dany teases, tickling her little belly and thinking, ‘ _Goodness, this child was born to be queen and she damn well knows it._ ’

~

Dany has voiced to him that sometimes, she looks in the mirror and can’t quite recognize her own body. Nurturing three lives, first with their daughter and then again with their twins, has changed her in many ways and her body is the least of them but the tangibility of that change makes it different for her, she’d whispered.

It’s what comes to mind when he catches her staring into the massive mirror propped outside their bathing chambers, gossamer-thin robe slid down to her forearms.

The delicious curve of hips is slightly wider, her perfect breasts are fuller, the kissable skin beneath her navel is lined with pale ripples, and by the gods, she’s the most stunning woman on the planet.

He’s about to tell her as such when her gaze becomes shuttered as she meets his through the mirror and out the corner of his eye, he notices one of her hands lift to her stomach. The implication of her touch sends his heart screeching to a stop, lungs refusing to take in any air, but he manages to gasp, “Dany, you’re not….”

He loves the family she has given him far beyond what is fathomable and even further beyond his capabilities to express it but apprehension rises within him, even in the absence of the signs he’d witnessed the past two times,.

She smiles, suddenly, and it drags him away from the edge of panic. “I’m not,” she laughs.

Only then can he breathe. Stepping closer to wrap her in his arms, his hands smooth over her satin skin to span across her waist as he buries his face into her neck and murmurs, “Oh, thank the gods.”

It dawns on him how bloody _dense_ that was of him the moment the words leave his lips but her shoulders have already tensed in disquiet. Fucking hells, he could try for a thousand lifetimes yet his fool self would never deserve her.

“I did not know you felt so strongly on the matter,” she mumbles, a twinge of hurt somewhere within the forced quip.

“You know it’s not like that, Dany.” He looks back up into the mirror to convey the honest apology in his eyes while hugging her closer. “I worry for you, is all. The maester said—”

“I know what the maester said,” she bites out, clearly still unhappy with his counsel. Their Grand Maester believes it miraculous for her to have survived twins and so he strongly heeds against more princes or princesses.

“But he’s not wrong, as much as we wish otherwise. Aemon and Jae are not even two yet and you saw how I was with them. It terrifies me, Daenerys, the possibility of—” he begins but the words catch like barbs in his throat, too agonizing to be spoken.

Given the way the gods had snatched their mothers from the world, he’d spent all of her first pregnancy suppressing his ever-rising anxiety but that had been nothing compared to her second — _twins_. Only when two perfect, healthy baby boys with identical crowns of dark wisps had been placed into his arms by his equally healthy wife had he relaxed.

She softens against him then, forearms crossing to lay her hands over his. “Well, I’m not so you needn’t worry. It’s just… the scars. They seem less keen on fading this time.” Her tone is merely observatory but he still discerns the underlying hint of defeat.

He realizes he’d been right all along but it brings him no joy or relief. In fact, it kills him to see her scrutinizing her body when he’s on the verge of creating a bloody shrine for it at any given movement.

To him, it is an undeniable truth that everything about her exceeds magnificence, any so-called ‘flaws’ merely enhancing her beauty within and without, and he wishes to remind her of it. “I’ve got my fair share of scars too and you often tell me that there is a strength to them,” he ventures, not quite sure where he’s going but letting his heart speak freely. “I need you to know that, if my scars show strength, then yours show tenfold that, Dany. It pains me to see you doubt their beauty, for you to not see yourself the way my eyes do.”

He feels her take in a shallow breath against his chest and watches as a bashful smile graces her lips. She ducks her head when his gaze becomes too much but her smile only seems to widen as she jests, “Flattery does not become you, Your Grace.”

With a raspy laugh, he spins her around, hands gliding up her back inside the robe as he does, and captures her lips in a kiss. “It’s not flattery and you know it.”

“I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> i planned to post two other drabbles this week but they both rebelled on me and turned into one-shots and i couldn't finish them on time but maybe expect them some time in the coming weeks yay
> 
> hope this was okayyyy:)


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